"In a room all full of Chinese Lamps..."-- "Frank Sinatra", Cake

We had two farewell dinners… the first the official, and the second the day after w/ those of those who were left. Both days were in rooms filled with Chinese Lamps… a rather appropriate atmosphere for ending our time together. The last day involved driving back from Haylong Bay. A few of us went to see the water puppets… which while kinda corny, is a lot of fun too… as long as you don’t have little children standing in your way. Water puppets are a form of entertainment developed in the countryside to entertain people during the wet season. A screen is built, and puppets are at the ends of bamboo sticks that are moved under the water from behind the screens… making it look a lot like the puppets are walking on the water. And of course there is singing and music and things as well… stuff gets lit on fire, and water gets sprayed and splashed places. It was good family fun. Then there was dinner in Kyoto restaurant… which is a place where they take street kids and train them to be chefs. Pricey, but good… there’s a lot of places like that throughout asia… and I like supporting them as much as possible… cooking is a great skill… people always need to eat. I remember having pumpkin and cashew ravioli… it was incredible… that’s why I mention it… its so completely random… but it really was good. And above us were a bunch of big white Chinese lamps… probably about 2-3 feet around.

Then it was time to say our goodbyes… At first I made an attempt to get pics for my wall… above you have me w/ Rachel, Helena, and Thinh… I then just gave up, and realized the wall will just have to do w/out my traveling people.

The next day Me, Rachel, and Helena did a little bit of touristy stuff. Here we are on the Bridge of the Rising Sun overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake—this lake is pretty famous. Legend has it this king asked the gods for help to defeat the enemy and they gave him a sword… which worked… so after winning the battle, he returned to the lake and a giant tortoise came up and took the magic sword back… Reminds me quite a bit of king Arthur and Excalibur.

We then had lunch at the cyclo Café… which is a French café full of old fashioned cycloes… which you see us here posing in.

Its around this point that we had to get back b/c Rachel had to fly out, and we were storing all of our stuff in Helena’s room b/c she was staying at the same hotel for another night or so. After Rachel left, we went to go find my hotel… Oh adventure… we get to the hotel… and the guy is like… we thought you were a man? Now this is something that’s happened quite a bit since I’ve been here… they just can’t understand that Robin is both a girl and boy name. I don’t even know how many times I’ve gotten the “Why you have boys name?” question… and don’t even get me started on what happens to hotel arrangements when they think you’re a boy… so you get paired up to room w/ a boy… *this always gets fixed once they see I’m clearly not a boy… So it took a few minutes of them comprehending that no, I wasn’t meeting my husband/father there, that there was only me, and they had gotten it wrong. Next thing they tell me is that I don’t have a room… which nearly makes me loose my temper b/c I’d booked it a while ago. The reason they didn’t have my room…. b/c in the storm the room was flooded and everything was wet and water damaged…. So, they decide to put me in their sister hotel around the corner. Decent room, somewhere near the top… creepy sketchy staff that liked to walk up behind me and creepily whisper “hello… robin” in my ear. Yeah, craziness…

The next day I had to myself, so a bit tired out from touring, I grabbed my book, and I just sat and read by the lake. I did take a couple of pictures though…

This here is some Communist propaganda telling people to vote… b/c it was Ho Chi Minh’s birthday on the 19th, followed up by elections on the 20th… everything was super propagandized. Tons of posters, flags, and stages set up where there was live “music” and “entertainment”.

This here is the view from where I was sitting and reading… its of Ngoc Son Pagoda.

And the best thing ever… Doner Kebab stands… while not quite the same as the ones in Austria… still highly amusing to see here… but you couldn’t pay me to eat it… its food poisoning waiting to happen here.

So I had some time to kill, so I went and got a massage… my first one in Asia… Picked what seemed to be a pretty legit spot, in the most popular area of town. Worst massage experience. First… they didn’t use any oil… which can be fine… but not w/what she was doing… it was just painful… and left bruises up and down my arms in rows where she dug her knuckles in. but even before that they had me sit in a sauna for a while… which was ok… until the large asian men came in and joined me… *I’m only in a towel… not cool. And then no one told me when to come out… so about half an hour or so later I rolled out of there for the evil massage… but it doesn’t end there. First… the key to my locker broke… which kinda sucked… so after the got it open, the girl just stayed, so I figured she was waiting for a tip… so I grabbed my wallet and went to giver her a couple of dollars… she goes… “no, more”… I’m like… no, I already paid. And she’s like, “I don’t get any of that”… but then she stood between me and my clothes… one hand on them… which is quite possible the most non violent threatening gesture I’ve ever run across. So I ended up paying her some ridiculous tip… but made it out w/ my clothes.

I then met up w/ my group for drinks at a bar above where the massage place was *yes… it seriously was in the biggest most visited area in all of Hanoi. Drinks were followed up by our last dinner… all together again… minus Rachel and Thinh… we ended up back at the cyclo café… in a back garden patio area… once again, all filled with little mini colorful Chinese lamps.

"When you're on a golden sea, you don't need no memory, just a place to call your own, as we drift into the zone."-- "Island in the Sun", Weezer

Halong Bay… yet another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Legend has it that Viet Nam was going to be attacked, so a dragon jumped out of Hanoi and landed in Halong Bay shooting up the limestone rocks everywhere to protect the country. Which it actually did a pretty good job at doing.

At first gimpse you don’t realize how much is around you… it looks a lot like a lagoon from the Marshalls… except with height… then suddenly you are surrounded by thousands upon thousands of little islands.

If you look behind me you can see that there is a floating village in these islands… there was even a dog… and people rowing up to your boat… or to you while you were swimming asking you if you want to buy anything…

Here you can see the storm rolling in ... we actually had incredible weather considering how rainy it had been all trip... this really just rolled in, and rolled away again... the rain really didn't get us until the night

And here is a ship putting up its traditional sails

We stopped off at a grotto/caves… yes it involved more steps… but was pretty awesome inside

Here is the view from outside the caves looking down on part of the bay…

Then there’s me chillaxin in the sun… gotta love feet pictures

Then there were those who went kayaking ( we all know how I feel about kayaking)... particularly funny was the fact that a few people got kayaks... then the boat left that area... and turned into a whole new area... leaving them behind... now all the boats out here look exactly the same... so we were pretty sure we lost them... but they found us in the end...

But we all went swimming… The boys even jumped off the roof of the boat… I had briefly considere jumping... at first i didn't think Thinh was serious that were were allowed... so I just jumped off the edge of the boat... Actually I was the first to jump and it was still a little high... but then the boys did their thing... The crazy thing was the water had so much salt in it that I didn’t have to tread water… I just basically sat there, not moving… it was pretty crazy awesome… except for the jellyfish of course… evil bastards.

And here’s Thinh learning to swim… then we caught the sunset a bit…

Here is the sunset.... not spectacular... but nice.

And came close to some rocks…

But this here is my favorite picture… everything silhouetted by the sunset… you can even see the pagoda at the top of the far right mountain.

Then at night you could see and hear the other ships all around us…

Here’s Helena, Kat, Tony, and Andy… plus me, Rachel, and Quinton… we stayed up playing card games, drinking, and turning my i-pod on as loud as my headphones would go so we had some music. It was exactly what a vacation should be.

"Where are you going? Where do you go? Are you looking for answers for the reasons under the stars?"-- "Where are you going?", Dave Matthews Band

Almost the entire time that I was wandering around Hanoi this song kept playing in my head… No real apparent reason, except that I really wasn’t sure where I was going. We originally got to Hanoi via an overnight train… stayed for a day, then the next morning took off to Halong Bay, then came back… and that was really it… I then had a couple of nights on my own as I just wandered around Hanoi… more or less aimlessly. Actually, it ended up that I just sat on the banks of the lake one day, and just read my book… which was rather brilliant… except that weird guys kept coming and sitting next to me and trying to talk to me… *you have to realize by this point I’d faced so many people trying to swindle me out of money through various methods, I basically reacted as what can only be described as a New Yorker. I’ve been bouncing back and forth whether to make it all one post or two… but I think I’m definitely going w/ two now… so just ignore most of whats written above… I was going to delete it but found it too amusing and need it to bolster this post a bit. But I’m really starting to get ahead of myself now… So lets throw this all back into reverse a few days….

Overnight trains are not my favorite thing on the planet… basically it tends to result in me being jostled awake every single time the train stops… which is really just annoying… What sticks out about this particular train ride were 2 things actually… 1st we actually got cabins… this did not stick out at the time… but would on later train rides… 2nd Louise went to get on her bunk, grabbed a towel rack, which ripped out of the wall and cause her to fall, only to be caught by a passing ticket man. There was also a girl with squeaky shoes that was really cute… Anywho… the train rolled in in the early morning… we’re talking still dark. Then we had to walk with all of our stuff for about 15 minutes… this was harder than you might be thinking for me, as I was also lugging around a bunch of suits and wood carvings etc… but I survived, which was good.

We crashed our stuff… but didn’t get to check in… so we went for a walk… *its still dark out*… but got lighter as we started approaching the lake…

Where we did Tai Chi (yes I was partaking in this too)… It was going over well until they started doing aerobic Tai Chi… super fast paced… we all know how I am w/ coordination. So after a while… our very tired selves became very disillusioned with tai chi. As we continued wandering around the lake we saw people doing all sorts of exercises… they play this came that’s like a cross between badminton and soccer, and then there were the weight lifters, and guys standing on their heads.

Then there was this square here, where everyone was doing all of it at the same time… tai chi, soccer, badminton… it was ridiculous… and I know when I do aerobics I need to be in front w/ a clear view of the leader… these people were standing on the other side of the street and following along… totally blew my mind… you couldn’t even hear the music… but the real kicker was when they all started… for lack of a better word… gyrating…. In our sleep drunk daze, it was pretty funny…

And then Thinh joined in…

We then headed over to Ho Chi Minh’s Mouseleum… Yes, I got to see my very first embalmed Dictator…. Preservation is absolutely terrifying… he definitely just looked like a little wax figure.

As far as evil dictators are concerned Minh falls more under the lines of idealist… a lot like Stalin. Being there and hearing different stories he really did believe in a lot of things he was doing, and at least seemed to care mostly about the people… hence why they now call him “uncle Ho”… And I’m not just reciting communist propaganda here. For instance… the above picture is the presidential palace. Minh looked at it… said that it was way to extravagant to live in and would cost too much to upkeep, so he built this little shack in the back called the house on stilts.

Now this place is literally a room on stilts… and its where he lived… and worked… He also specifically asked to be cremated when he died… be cost efficient to the state… but the over zealous commis, build a giant Russian communist style tomb and spend bazillions of dongs every few years to keep him embalmed… if he wasn’t in plain view, he’d probably be turning in his grave.

On another disturbing note, I completely damaged our tour guide’s mental world. He was telling us about Communism… and he points to two portraits… and starts talking about the founders of Communism… Lenin and Engels. Now I look at these pictures and very bluntly say… that’s Marx. I mean the guy is really recognizable… especially that picture… he’s got the whole insane lion thing going on. He tried to argue with me on this… “No, there was Lenin-Marx and there was Engels”… I’m pretty sure I may have slapped my head at this comment *remember, I hadn’t slept* and I then had to inform him that Lenin and Marx were two different people… then someone asked what they wrote… and I was like the Communist Manifesto… Marx wrote it… Hegel financed it… Lenin acted on it. “where was the written”—In England… marx was broke, lived w/ Engels, wrote it for England and Germany. “Oh, is that why he’s buried in London”… granted I realize I know way too much about this stuff off the top of my head to really be healthy… but still, Marx in a communist country ought to be recognized… everything else… not so much… and no one remembers Engels.

But again… I digress… Our tour took us round to the One Pillar Pagoda… which is supposed to represent a lotus flower… which I think it does pretty well.

And that was our big day wandering around Hanoi… I ended up shipping all my souvenirs home… they should get there around when I do… And as tends to happen when I’m doing lots of traveling w/ Europeans, I got sucked into the soccer matches… This lasted during most of the traveling… I find it’s a good bonding experience… and enjoy it just enough to have a favorite team (Manchester… though I’m still partial to Munich), understand rules, and recognize key figures from time to time. But as w/ most sports… I won’t watch it on my own.

"Carpe Diem... Seize... the carp!"-- Dude, Where's my Car?

You may have noticed by now that almost everything tends to have a bit of a Chinese flair to it… It probably has something to do w/ the fact that China is huge and has dominated Asia for a bagillion years (*please note the sarcasm)… But it is true… especially in Viet Nam. There are Chinese lamps everywhere… I would probably be bringing home some Chinese lamps… had I not dropped so much money on other things while I was in Hoi An… and figured I’d see nice ones again somewhere else… This was wrong… This is my word of advice to all of you traveling out there… if you go to Hoi An… and you see something you like… buy it… immediately… its going to be more expensive in larger cities and crappier quality. And a lot of the stuff in Hoi An is original work… you just don’t know it yet. Oh, and if people won’t haggle you for something… that means that its really really really good quality work… I did this with a wood carving… they gave me a straight price, I searched everywhere else in town, no where else had it… it was an actual original… shocking… but I’m digressing… this blog is moving on from Hoi An… and into Hue… the formal capital… where the Chinese influence is quite apparent… But before we get there, we turn back to the Marble Mountains…

It is a fundamental traveling law… that all things worthwhile will be at the top of a hill/mountain… This doesn’t change even when your in asia… And the most common phrases out of my mouth… and those of you who have traveled w/ me know this are something like, “I’m not climbing anymore f’ing mountains”, “I f’ing hate mountains”, etc, etc, etc… There are also certain details that are always there in addition to these mountain expeditions… the number one being rain… it will always be cloudy and rainy… it will especially be rainy if the path is a narrow dirt path with a large drop off, or really old slippery steps/rocks… Of course there is also the rare occasion when you are walking up a mountain to a castle and there’s snow on the ground, the path has become a sheet of perma-ice… so you are walking up in the gutter b/c that the only place you don’t slip… and you see people coming down sliding on their butts… then you get to the top only to find there’s an actual road on the other side. But obviously this is not a SE asia story… but my point is… there’s always these stupid mountains, and no matter how much you bitch and whine, your going to climb it b/c you’re a traveler and that’s what you do…

So here are the steps up to the Marble mountains…

And the reward for the steps is this here awesome view. At one point this was probably all one mountain… just mined and quarried away b/c its all limestone/marble… now its said it looks like a dragon’s back…

Plus a whole bunch of pagodas in trees… and this awesome fat happy Buddha

Then you fallow this awesome path into the caves…

With the goddess of mercy in front… plus more steps!

Then there’s just this huge open space – with the little demon guard things…. you can see rachel at the bottom of the cave *purple shirt... just to get an idea of how big it is

Inside it had a buddha in the wall and the Ling Ong Pagoda, and a hole in the roof that is said to have been caused by US bombing b/c the Viet Cong would hide in the caves.

Then Down below are the Non Nuoc village quarries with just tons and tons and tons of marble statutes.

We then stopped on a beach in the middle of no where for lunch and pictures… I tried to catch the name of the place but didn’t get it… the hotel was completely disserted… as was the beach… if you ever really just needed a getaway… this would be it. Pick up suit in Hoi An… then stay on this beach.

Its around this point that we started getting into jungle area as we cruised the coast line… it made for some awesome scenery plus you can see paths through the jungle… and the gate where people crossing the mountains to the imperial city (Hue) had to stop before going through.

And then finally Hue… where we took another cyclo trip…

This here is the Flag Tower of the Citadel… marking the outer wall of the Imperial city.

This is where the King/Emperor would sit during celebrations etc.

Of course there’s a moat

And from here you can see the Forbidden Purple City… A lot like the Forbidden city in China. This is where the King his wives and concubines would live along with women servants and Unics.

Now these here are some crazy carp. You clap your hands and they come to you… then you give them a little food and they swarm… like this picture… But carp are incredibly important… they say that if you keep a carp alive long enough… it will turn into a dragon. The dragon is one of four sacred creatures. It represents power or the king (pending on who is telling the story). There is also the phoenix who represents nobility, the Unicorn (not at all as we know it) representing wisdom, and the Turtle representing longevity. Also sacred, is the lotus… as it represents purity and fertility. Some random observations carp are basically a lot like coy and lotus seems to be the same as a water lily.

Here now is what is supposed to be a tiger shaped bush.

Then a group photo by the Thai Binh Reading Pavilion

Then a quick glimpse of the Hien Lam through some doors. And that puts an end to one of the hottest days in the history of this tour… and one of the longest.

The next day we took a boat ride up the Perfume river checking out imperial tombs and monasteries.

Here is the Thien Mu Pagoda

And this is the car that a certain monk drove to Hanoi (I think), doused himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire in protest against the Communists… The event is an incredibly famous photo.

This here is the Tomb of Tu Doc. He was a pretty decent ruler… but unlucky… over 100 wives and no children.

Another group photo…

And rounding it all out w/ my smiling face.